“twelve drawings, an equal number of paintings and one hour of digital electronic music. While any of these components could stand on its own merits in other contexts, Fields, Ruckman and Taylor don’t think of them as separate works or bodies of work. In keeping with their original concept, they see (and hear) their creative efforts for this project as parts of a unity, a single work or “force field” with multiple facets--an aesthetic transmission from a particular sector of a magical universe through three human mediums or creative conduits--to be experienced in toto.”
-Tom Patterson
Jupiter Optimus Maximus is a group artistic meditation on an unfathomable complex of forces. The polarity between abstract and linear art forms seems to express a similar polarity in the dynamic multidimensionality of the intelligences themselves. They are impossible to conceptually limit or define- only momentarily graspable. The spatialized sound signatures express a similar dichotomy between elements that are shifting in their quality of focus- sometimes blurred and nebulous, and at other times well defined and articulated- and also in their movements from foreground to background in the space.
Jupiter Optimus Maximus:
Blue Volition aspect: Electricity and Will
Sofia aspect: Cosmic Love and Wisdom
Gnostic Dawn aspect: Knowledge
Hermetic Impulse aspect: Magnetism
Animus aspect: Life Principle
Alchymia aspect: Chemical Elements
Progenitor aspect: Fertility
Emanation aspect: Radiation
Symmetria aspect: Equilibrium
Causation aspect: Cause and Effect
Crystal Magus aspect: Gravitation and Crystallization
De Profundis aspect: Evolution
The Hermetic Process
“Hermetics teaches that life exists on all planets, either in sentient physical form, as on the Earth, or as physically formless entities embodying their own types of wisdom, information and power. According to this scheme, Jupiter--as the largest planet in our solar system (and king of the gods in classical antiquity)--generates and coordinates the activities of life on all the smaller planets. Furthermore, these controlling powers are distributed among Jupiter’s 12 highest-ranking genii--intelligent and creative but non- corporeal entities, or spirits. It is these entities that our three artists chose to address and/or portray in this project.”
-Tom Patterson
The human Hermeticist enters into audio-visual trance, through intention comes into contact with the sphere of influence of the intelligences, and becomes their mirror. We as artists try to come to terms with the aesthetic impressions created by this mirroring process- and then hew it into a physical form, externalizing it into Art. We are only able to technically realize a very limited range of impressions, since the experiential aspect is multidimensional, multisensory, kinetic, and changing in psychologically unfathomable ways.
The ultimate moment is the bestowal by the intelligence of the abhisheka- a transfer of power quotient- a residual charge from the immense sources of power and intelligence existing in Nature. The amazing synesthetic adventure of the Hermetic observer carries this charge. It transforms the Hermeticist’s vision and abilities- and creates new possibilities for artistic exploration.
The mysteries of Jupiter as a solar focal point are impossible to fully grasp. In Jupiter Optimus Maximus we have attempted to deal with an ancient mythological ideal, conceptualized through experiential spiritual science, and expressed in the locution of contemporary Art.
Our aim as spiritual scientists (as distinct from experiment- observation science), is to experience first-hand, the structure and activities of Nature; and ultimately to interact with and participate in Its creation- the process by which human consciousness merges with macrocosmic awareness, and participates in the activity of super- conscious Nature. All ancient societies were engaged in this kind of knowing, though calling it various names- but always the objective is to become the living vessel of the generative, sustaining, and destructive principle of All that Is, a vehicle of Its transcendental wisdom and elemental power, a participant in Its cosmic work.
The idea was to establish experiential interconnection with each of the twelve intelligences of the Jupiter Sphere – keeping in mind that these intelligences embody actual forces of Nature. These forces are understood as conscious creative entities, not the blindly driven probability systems of modern physical science. All structures in nature display an amazing fine-tuning of constants and organizing principles- geometrical and hierarchical qualities evident from the atom to the solar and galactic cosmos. Nature is teeming with intelligent forms of life, visible and invisible, physical as well as subtle. It always moves and acts in cyclic process, with purpose. To think that we as humans can fathom all the dimensions of life is hubris, but we can become an instrument of life’s expression.
It was a self-created sadhana (spiritual discipline)- our own method of interacting with that divine essence which generates and permeates every form and process in Nature. And then to embody that essence, first in experiential perception, then in mental and psychic imagery of an audio-visual nature, and finally into a concrete form- be it pencil, paint, or musical gesture. There was so much cross-relation and overlapping of ideas and sensory images. It almost had the feel at times that we were all working on each other’s art forms together, though we each maintained a totally different medium and individualized style.